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Spaceborne Assault Trooper Armée
The Armée de Soldat d'Assaut Spaceborne, or the Spaceborne Assault Troopers, were the fighting soldiers of the Griffon Alliance. They were a rapid-deployment strike force designed to operate in any and all environments in close coordination with the Armada and its ships. Known for conducting warfare at a rapid, nearly ravenous pace, the troopers were revered in some circles for their fortitude, but reviled in others for their brutality and single-dimensionality. Role & Purpose If a parallel needed to be drawn, the SATs were akin to the Marines of the New Republic or the Caspian Democratic Union, in that they were berthed aboard, operated from, and defended naval vessels of their Armada. They were more closely related to Imperial Spacetroopers, but not as specialized, and far more widely used. The Griffons, lacking significant populace, had no standing army — the SATs constituted the definition of "soldiers" for the Alliance. Structure & Strategy The SATs were predicated around a peloton (platoon) numbering sixteen men, led by an officer (commonly a Midshipman, unless the peloton was a specialized unit, wherein a Lieutenant was assigned). Troopers within the peloton were trained to operate as pairs, and as pairs, were nearly autonomous. They moved fast, with little regard for territory gained, short of their objective. They adopted the concept that possession of a target (ship or installation) hinged around eradication of key components and/or personnel, and to that end, they were rabidly focused. To possess a section of a ship or installation was, to them, pointless. In larger formations, these pelotons fought as units underneath the Armée (army) umbrella. Since all pelotons were trained in a variety of combat roles, they were nearly interchangeable, and would be dispatched to form infantry, artillery, mechanized armor, or demolition roles with the proper equipment provided. Some pelotons were trained further in such aspects as recon and intelligence, but these were rare. Common to all units was the vacuum of space. One such reason for their small unit size was the use of zero-G vacuum armor suits and weapons suited for large-scale destruction. Earning them a cutthroat reputation was their penchancy for infiltrating a ship or installation and then heading right for the environmental controls, attempting to neutralize the occupants by "spacing the lot of them." While feared in space combat, they were not considered an army capable of holding planetary territory or engaging in planetary-scale warfare. An attempt was made to address this issue in 8 ABY through experimentation with unpowered drop-capsules holding two-to-four SATs. Dubbed Hailstones, these recyclable capsules would be drop-saturated over a planetary region by an orbiting warship so as to get as many SATs on the ground as quickly as possible. Whether this was actually used or not is unknown, but it was discussed for use over Mutanda, if the situation called for it. During fleet actions, SATs would be deployed via assault shuttles from their warships, or be embarked in smaller ships called lighters. These lighters would act like skirmishers and flankers, and would attempt to harass the enemy fleet, eventually trying to tie up alongside an enemy vessel so as to put SATs — their crew — aboard. These SATs were often referred to as Dragoons. Ranks :General :Commandant :Captain :Lieutenant :Midshipman :Sergeant :Trooper Uniforms & Equipment Units of Distinction * Third Peloton, Scythian Group — this unit valiantly led the assault on Imperial forces in the retaking of Pride-1 (at the time called OS Redemption). The peloton alone accounted for nearly a third of Imperial Stormtrooper and soldier casualties suffered in the action, at a cost of most of their own by the end of the day. The unit was rebuilt, but the name was retired after Pride-1's destruction as humbrage to the previous unit. No pelotons could use the designation forthwith. Category:Griffon Organizations